If confirmed as Deputy United States Trade Representative, I will continue to fight for American workers, fight for the environment, and fight for our economic future.

Ambassador Tai believes we need a different approach that gives workers a seat at the table, so their perspectives and voices are incorporated into the policy that we develop.

It includes a new tool known as the rapid response mechanism that, when used, allows us to promptly raise concerns with the Mexican and Canadian Governments when there are allegations of worker rights violations.

the bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is what happens to patients.

Innovation will be central to our efforts to address rising healthcare costs.

The work that the Innovation Center is doing will help us become more efficient and achieve our shared goals of containing costs.

It has been a pleasure serving on this committee.

In my opinion, it could be one of the most important hearings we have held during my time as ranking member on the subcommittee.

This committee has the potential of doing more good for the American people than perhaps any other single subcommittee in the Congress.

This area is such a large part of our economy as well as such a large part of our question of national security.

We are trying to figure out where we are going as a country and how we can turn our investments and innovation into sustainable models moving forward.

Last year, we came together with MACRA. That landmark reform repealed the SGR and already started the process of transforming how we try to pay physicians under Medicare.

Mr. Blumenauer put through a bill, Mr. Levin and I put a bill in 25 years ago, that everybody in Medicare ought to file an advance directive.

Now, the reason I raise this issue is that we all know that about 70 percent of healthcare costs occur in the last 6 months of life.

We have begun to lay the groundwork for payment reform by passing the IMPACT Act, which will give us the data we need to improve quality in post-acute care settings.

We have made some substantive bipartisan progress recently. We need to build on our success.

It is not what happens in Mr. Kind's district, where about 80 percent of the people have advance directives.

This is the kind of hearing where there isn't much disagreement about the fact that we want to have quality.

None of us on our side who were involved in drawing it up thought for one minute that we had created the Ten Commandments off the mountain, which haven't been changed since Moses brought them down off the mountain.

The Governor of Texas decided he didn't want health care coverage for 1.2 million or 1,314,000 people.

Let me take an example, because we hear a lot of examples given up here.

I always love to come to these propaganda hearings before the elections, and it is obvious we are trying to hold the insurance companies harmless here.

The witch hunt that is going on here is really about discrediting the IRS.

I appreciate your public service.